The slight figure of Victoria Cilliers, pictured at court, and the soft earth of a newly ploughed field saved her after her parachute was sabotaged

Sentencing the 38-year-old, Mr Justice Sweeney said he was a "danger to the public" and added: "This was wicked offending of extreme gravity.

"Your offending was extremely serious with your two attempts to murder your wife. They were planned and carried out in cold blood for your own selfish purposes which include financial gain.

"You have shown yourself to be a person of quite exceptional callousness who will stop at nothing to satisfy his own desires, material or otherwise.

"Nor have you shown the least sign of remorse."

Describing the effect on Mrs Cilliers, who asked for her victim impact statement not be made public, the judge said: "That your wife recovered at all was miraculous, she undoubtedly suffered severe physical harm and she must have suffered psychological harm in the terror of the fall and since.

"She appears to have recovered from the physical harm but not, having seen her in the witness box in length, from the psychological harm."

Cilliers — who was £22,000 in debt — wanted her £120,000 life insurance payout to fund a new life with his Tinder lover Stefanie Goller

The trial heard Cilliers, who had "out of control" debts racked up by taking his younger lover, Stefanie Goller, on expensive holidays, first attempted to kill his wife by tampering with a gas valve at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, at the end of March 2015.

After his wife discovered the gas leak, Cilliers made a second attempt on Mrs Cilliers’s life by sabotaging both her main and reserve parachutes causing her to fall 4,000ft to the ground which she "miraculously survived".

Her slight frame and the soft earth of a newly ploughed field saved her.

The bed-hopping sex addict also chatted to hookers and told one prostitute he wanted to film them having unprotected sex for £100.

The judge told Emile Cilliers that his attack on wife Victoria was 'carried out in cold blood'

Chief instructor demonstrates how a parachute could be tampered with in a toilet by Sgt Emile Cilliers for the trial over the attempted murder of wife Victoria Cilliers

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Elizabeth Marsh QC, defending, said: "Mr Cilliers himself accepted that since the spring of 2015 many aspects of his life were out of control, we might characterise his life as being chaotic."

She said he had addressed his financial situation and reduced his debt from £23,000 to £10,000 through "his own hard work and industry".

She continued: "He was desperate to see his children, reunite with them and make reparations to his wife for all the wrongs he had done. He has fought to try to see his children where possible in recent months but that has been forbidden.

"He became a creditworthy example to the armed forces and it's a tragedy for him that he has destroyed that."

Following the conviction, police and prosecutors described the defendant as "very dangerous, coercive and manipulative".

Speaking outside court, Detective Inspector Paul Franklin, of Wiltshire Police, said: "Emile Cilliers is dangerous; he's a cold, callous, selfish man who cares only about money and his sexual conquests. Today's sentencing means that society is a little safer with him locked away."